A big-city transplant returns to the small Hawaiian town her parents still call home for a volcanic family reunion in Mary Lyon Kamitaki’s highly entertaining generation-gap/culture-clash dramedy Southernmost, the latest Playwrights’ Arena World Premiere.

It’s been five years since Charlene, aka Charlie (Amielynn Abellera, digging deep and delivering) left Naalehu, the southernmost town in the U.S.A., for life on the mainland, and it’s only at the insistence of her haole girlfriend Jessica (Kimberly Alexander in appealing, fish-out-of-water mode) that the lesbian couple have crossed the Pacific to spend a week with Charlie’s parents Wally (Alberto Isaac, deliciously rambunctious ) and Becky (Sharon Omi, spousal/maternal warmth personified), and discover that though some things (Charlie’s room for example) have stayed the same, others have not.

Most significant among these changes is Wally and his best friend Bruce’s (Aaron Ikeda, bubbling with pep) plan to take advantage of Hawaii’s burgeoning coffee-growing business by planting seedlings throughout Wally’s property, an unplanned career trajectory taken after Becky sold her husband’s fishing boat to protect his precarious health.

Meanwhile, nothing Charlie has told her girlfriend about Naalehu has prepared the Bay Area-raised Jessica for how different life is there, and not just because Wally and Becky’s house is nothing at all like Charlies “super neat-freaky” mainland abode.

Neither can Jessica understand why Charlie seems so afraid to talk to her parents about her same-sex relationship. Is her heretofore out-and-proud girlfriend embarrassed to tell them who she is?

Not that Wally and Becky haven’t already figured out what’s going on in their daughter’s bedroom, it being no different for Charlie than it was for Wally when he and Becky were young and (as the latter puts it Hawaiian-style) “my daddy no like you, so you gotta sneak around in your truck in the middle of the night.”

Still, whatever coming-out plans Charlie may have in store for the parents get put on hold when news breaks that Mount Kilauea, just forty miles away, has erupted big time, and though Wally remains unconcerned, his daughter knows all too well that if volcanic lava reaches the one road leading out of town, they’ll be trapped.

To pack, or not to pack, that is the question, and with a dad as pig-headed as Wally, it’s one more easily posed than answered.

It’s hardly necessary to be a gay woman who’s left a small Hawaiian town for an urban life on the mainland to identify with Charlie’s dilemma, and even if Thomas Wolfe is wrong and you can go home again, it’s best not to expect your return visit to be bump-free.

Not only does Southernmost’s universal appeal make it the most entertaining, accessible Playwrights’ Arena World Premiere since 2017’s Little Women [a multicultural transposition], there’s something particularly special about a play whose characters speak in the charmingly musical patois that is Hawaiian Pidgin, as when Wally talks about having seen “one old lady get white hair walking down the road” or complains when his doctor orders him to go on “one diet where no can eat rice.” (Even Charlie finds herself reverting to her native dialect when Dad starts driving her crazy.)

Director Jon Lawrence Rivera follows Skylight Theatre’s captivating and compelling America Adjacent with another crowd-pleaser, one that allows four absolutely splendid Asian-American actors (and one haole guest) to strut their expert comedic-dramatic stuff.

Scenic designer Justin Huen’s island-evocative set makes Playwrights’ Arena’s matchbox stage look doubly expansive, Lily Bartenstein lights it (and Mylette Nora’s just-right costumes) with a tropical glow, and Jesse Mandapat’s sound design adds to the Hawaiian ambiance throughout.

Southernmost is produced by Henry “Heno” Hernandez. Giovanni Ortega is associate producer. Letitia Chang is stage manager. Luis Alfaro is dramaturg. Casting is by Raul Clayton Staggs.

Wally and Becky’s future on the Big Island may depend on the whims of Pele, Goddess Of The Volcano, but audiences can rest assured that while Southernmost is in town, eighty minutes of entertaining, engaging theater are a sure bet on the Playwrights’ Arena stage.

Playwrights’ Arena @ Atwater Village Theatre, 3269 Casitas Ave., Atwater Village.
www.playrightsarena.org

–Steven Stanley
April 8, 2019
Photos: Kelly Stuart

Tags: Los Angeles Theater Review, Mary Lyon Kamitaki, Playwrights' Arena